From the June 1, 1994 edition of The New Castle Record
Anthropologists will study Craig County people this summer. The Forest Service has accepted as a significant issue (for their environmental impact statement) the question of how the proposed power line “might affect the cultural attachment residents feel toward Peters Mountain.”
Citizens for Preservation of Craig County assume this means “cultural attachment” to any affected place, and in order to have this issue professionally studied have contracted with Dr. Melinda Boller Wagner, professor of anthropology at Radford University, to explore and document the thoughts and feelings Craig Conty people have about their homeland. She will work within the context of the Federal cultural preservation legislation guidelines. Professor Wagner will contribute her own time. She and her students will receive funding from CPCC and other sources for travel expenses, tape and film, transcription, and equipment.
Five students, Stacy Viers, Shannon Scott, Lola Coleman, Allyn Beth Motley, and Megan Scanlon, came to Craig last week to learn something of the geography where they will work. They will begin calling residents this week to arrange convenient times for interviews.
CPCC encourages County people to talk to these researchers for an hour or so. (They will not use your name if you do not want them to.) The information they compile could be a very effective impediment to American Electric Power’s plans.
-Prepared by Shelly Koon
